Among amenities awaiting Bates students as they arrived on campus this month was a bicycle built for two — just the thing for taking a spin downtown with a close friend.

Donated anonymously by a Bates alum, the tandem bike is part of the college’s Bike Coop fleet. Launched in 2007, the program gives participating students an easy, healthy and environment-friendly way to get around.

The tandem bike and 14 new Marin cruiser bikes expand the coop fleet to 25. Julie Rosenbach, Bates environmental coordinator, increased the number of bikes to get more students pedaling, and eliminated a small fee for taking part, making the program free.

The program is now at full capacity, with 150 students signed up.

According to the 2001 National Household Travel Survey, 48 percent of all vehicular trips were three miles or less, and 24 percent were one mile or less — about five minutes by bike.

“The bicycle is the ultimate clean-air, zero-emissions vehicle,” says Rosenbach. “Access to bikes will offer an alternative to that car culture.”

The coop is part of the Sustainable Bates program, designed to encourage changes in individual habits. The idea, says Rosenbach, “is not just to ask people to live differently, but to also provide the tools for people to act with.”

The Bates coop is a simpler version of the large-scale bike-sharing schemes in major cities like Paris and Montreal. Coop bikes are dispersed around campus, and participating students receive a key that will unlock any bike in the fleet. They can take a bike wherever and whenever they need to go, and just lock it up again when they return it.

Rosenbach has helmets for students who need one.

Her office was also instrumental in bringing the national Zipcar car-sharing program, with two Toyota Prius hybrids, to campus. “Students can leave their cars at home entirely,” she says. “They can use our Zipcars for longer trips and in bad weather, and the coop bikes for around campus and town.”

Bates’ wide-ranging portfolio of sustainability initiatives has sparked a recent spate of national publicity, including mentions in the Sierra Club magazine, The Princeton Review and The Huffington Post.

This year, the college asked its 470 arriving first-year students to join together in researching and taking action on carbon emissions and climate change. They were given suggested summer reading that relates to climate change, and the annual orientation period included a presentation by Franke James, an artist known for her environmental activism.

In October, the first-years and other Bates students will take part in the International Day of Climate Action sponsored by the advocacy organization 350.org.

In recent years Bates has built new eco-friendly housing and a campus dining hall; contracted to virtually all its electricity from renewable Maine sources; and joined a national consortium of higher-educational institutions working toward carbon neutrality.

In addition, 28 percent of the food and beverages offered in the dining hall are locally grown or sustainably harvested, and the dining operation keeps an impressive 80 percent of its solid kitchen waste out of the local refuse stream through conservation and recycling.

The car was at least 90 degrees inside and I couldn’t figure out how to turn it on.

I was holding down the power button and pressing on the brake — but nothing. Maybe this was a bad idea.

A week earlier, when my mom called to tell me she couldn’t find her driver’s license, I knew it would cause problems for our planned get-together in Boston.

“But how are you going to rent a car?” I asked her. “We won’t be able to go anywhere without it.” She had no answers.

Recalling an e-mail buried in my inbox, I told my dad, “Bates started this new rent-a-car . . . thing, I don’t know. I’ll find out the details and let you know.”

The program, I found, is called Zipcar, and lets students and faculty rent one of the two Toyota Priuses on campus for $7 per hour and $55 per day. Registration was relatively easy: I filled out a form online, and within hours found myself approved, with a brand new Zipcard to open the car. I quickly made the reservation and called my mom with the good news.

In retrospect, that was the easy part. A few days later, I walked over to the Franklin Street lot at Bates, my arms laden with bags for my trip to Boston to meet my mom and sister. I took special care to stick the Zipcard, which was small and almost like a credit card, into my pocket, so I wouldn’t have to search for it among the various bags once I got there.

Unfortunately, once I got there, the card was gone. Pockets? Nope. Bag? Nope. My bags and I even made the heavy trip back to my room to look there, but no dice. It just disappeared into thin air. Worried, I hurried over to the Student Activities Office to get another card, and called up the company to reactivate it. They were beyond helpful, even going out of their way to adjust the reservation for the time that I had wasted looking for the card.

And now, here I was. Sitting in this hot car. With no idea how to start it. Frustrated, I pressed the power button again. Nothing. After a couple of minutes of wondering what to do, I looked down.

Oh. Putting the key in the ignition would be a good start.

Five minutes later, I was on my way. Driving a Prius is . . . a little bit of an adjustment. My shock at the first intersection was somewhat mitigated by the fact that I knew it would happen, but I was still startled when I felt the engine turn off. I turned up the volume on the radio to drown out the lack of sound. The Prius coasted more than my Camry does, and when you slow down and begin to hear the engine slow and shut off, it definitely gets your attention.

For a car that took a lot of driving that day, though, it certainly held up. It withstood several trips to Logan airport and the Amtrak station to get my mother and sister, and then actually into the city more than once that weekend. Luckily, gas was included in the rental price.

Driving it was actually pretty fun too. I tend to miss driving when I’m at Bates — turning up the radio and singing along like I would never do in public. There’s so few parking spots on campus, and it’s not feasible for me to bring my car all the way from California, so the Zipcar gives me the mobility that I missed my freshman year.

I’ve been able to pile my friends into the car and go out to grab dinner at Da Vinci’s or run to Shaw’s to pick up groceries. The Zipcar gives me the freedom to take off and go without the expense of driving a car all the way out here, paying for a parking permit, gas and insurance. That definitely works for me.

We hear a lot at Bates about having a sustainable campus, trying to reduce our energy consumption. I feel like I’ve found a way to do that without even making a real difference in my everyday life — I don’t need a car that often, and when I do, one’s easily available.

The trip back up from Boston, other than my going a hundred miles the wrong way, was uneventful (I never said I was good with directions). Stopping to fill up only twice for a trip of well over 400 miles was incredible — the next car I’m buying is definitely a Prius.

And I’m taking the Zipcar out again next Monday. I need to do some grocery shopping, and it’s so much easier than hopping on a bus.

By Becca Chacko ’10

This fall Bates College introduces the Bates Bikes, a fleet of 10 cruiser bicycles that belong to the newly created Bates Bike Co-op.  Students, faculty and staff can join the co-op for a $10-fee and use the bikes for short trips on and off campus, says Julie Rosenbach, the college’s environmental coordinator.

Membership in the co-op gives an individual a key to the locks that secure the bikes and the freedom to use the bikes on campus and in the greater Lewiston-Auburn area. Individual users taking good care of the bicycles will promote the program’s sustainability, Rosenbach says. “If the program is successful this year and we see the need, we will expand it.”

Rules and regulations for the bikes include the following:

• Bikes must be properly secured and locked to a bike rack when not in use.
• Riders taking bikes off campus must return the bike to a campus rack upon completion of their adventure.
• Riders must abide by all Maine state and Bates College rules for bicycles.
• Riders are strongly encouraged to wear helmets.
• Bikes will be available through the Thanksgiving recess and will be returned from storage in April.

In addition to the newly instituted Bates Bike and Zipcar programs, says Rosenbach, “the college will also be exploring policy changes such as developing an intercollegiate ride board for carpools, offering on-campus vacation alternatives and offering subsidies for public transportation.”